


to tarnish blood and silver

by sadisthetic



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Bad Touch Chancellor Ardyn Izunia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Standard Mind Control, Poor Prompto Argentum, but like he'll be fine, playing around with how the whole daemon thing works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadisthetic/pseuds/sadisthetic
Summary: When the embodiment of the scourge, a daemon in the skin of a man, poisons your heart for the sake of a game and you're fighting against your own blood to keep yourself from killing the people you love.Trying to win the game... isn't going be all that much fun.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum & Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 18
Kudos: 59





	to tarnish blood and silver

**Author's Note:**

> so this fic. was anticipated to be like 2k. if i were lucky. as you can see. i was very fucking wrong... my whump writing hubris.... how the hell...
> 
> anyways this fic was very difficult to tag bc this whump. is not your typical mind control. nor the typical suicide attempt. motivations-wise the suicide part is Not the usual associated depression stuff but i still tagged it for safety. actually. what happens in this fic isnt really mind control even but. its the best fit trope... youll see.
> 
> wip doc was titled "prompto has a terrible time" which is as per usual with poor prompto fics
> 
> but prompto will be fine
> 
> ;p

Prompto rolls onto his back and stares woefully at the darkened nylon roof.

He can’t sleep.

It's just one of those nights where restlessness won’t bleed away into the haze of exhaustion because his brain won’t shut up about something stupid. He can’t even tell if it's general anxiety about like, _everything_ , or just his crushing inadequacy that’s making a mess of his feelings tonight, but he’s losing either way. Or more like he’s a _loser_ either way— augh. 

Prompto sits up and furiously scrubs his hands through his hair, already mussed up by his pillow. He hates this. And feeling worthless has never helped anyone. So quietly he slips out of the tent to hopefully air out his head of all his useless thoughts. What he would give to be brainless for just a few hours.

Prompto stretches his arms above his head as the tent flap falls back in place behind him. Outside, the smoldering glow of embers of the campfire barely penetrate the night. Nor do the glowy runes etched into the stone that are only marginally brighter. The too-tall trees obscure the dim moon; the clouds rolling overhead are thin but smother out all the stars. It’s exceptionally dark tonight.

It's cold, too. Just a degree too chilly to be pleasant, but Prompto doesn't want to bother going back in for a jacket and risk waking Ignis or Gladio. Noctis is whatever; he could sleep through a garula stampede, honestly. 

Prompto rubs his arms for warmth and steps quietly to the edge of the haven. Their choice of sojourn for the night is embedded into the side of a forested hill, and the side he's on is a small drop above the gentle slope, barely overlooking the sea of trees downhill. Or at least it would look like that if he could actually see past the first bank of trees. But at this hour, his surroundings are all swallowed up by inky blackness.

Prompto sighs and takes a seat. He dangles his legs off the ledge and closes his eyes. He hums an aimless tune.

Another hum joins in round.

“Quite a beautiful night, tonight, wouldn’t you agree?” a familiar mellow baritone lilts up from below.

Prompto jerks open his eyes and snaps his torso over the edge to frantically scan for the owner of the voice. In the poor lighting, he barely makes out a large figure swathed in thick clothes leaning against the face of the rock, just a few feet right of underneath Prompto’s feet. Prompto’s hackles rise.

“You—!”

“Shshh, do keep your voice down.” The clouds overhead part just enough to cast diffused moonlight over Ardyn's smug mug gazing up at him, head tilted back with a finger pressed to his curled lips. “We wouldn't want to disturb the others. They are in dire need of rest.” 

To that, Prompto sneers, irritation pulling his lips. Man. Fuck this guy. Vice chancellor or nothing. He does harshly whisper though, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Oh, just taking a nightly stroll. There's nothing quite like the tranquility of the night to quell your inner daemons.” Ardyn sighs and drops his gaze to the forest beyond, but Prompto can still trace the edges of his easy smile in his profile. He gestures towards the trees. “I was simply in the neighborhood. Supposed I might drop by.”

“In the neighborhood,” Prompto deadpans. “We’re in the middle of the woods.”

“Semantics,” Ardyn drawls while dismissively twirling his wrist. “And what of you? What are you doing up at this late hour, shouldn't you be in bed, curled against your prince, blissfully dreaming away? I never took you to be a night owl. Having trouble catching sleep?”

“Nmg.” He’s right, but— “I don’t have to tell you shit,” Prompto spits.

“Ouch, so harsh.” Ardyn chuckles amusedly. “But it seems you will be up for another few hours, regardless of your reasons for being so. To pass the time, care to join me for a stroll?” 

“Um, in the dead of night? When daemons can tear into my ass and kill me? Uh, thanks, but no thanks.”

“A shame. You could use a bit of fresh air. The night air is so nice and crisp.” Ardyn shifts his weight off the stone wall. “But it seems I'm unwanted here. I'd best be on my way, then.” And he just walks away into the tangle of trees.

“What?” Prompto watches his back, flummoxed. He’s just gonna go just like that? “Wait—” The nagging feeling inside him has him dropping down the few feet from the overhang before he can realize that hm, maybe this is a bad idea— fuck, it’s too late now— and he runs and catches Ardyn by the wrist. 

“Hang on.” Prompto narrows eyes at him, hoping they don’t betray his budding nervousness. “What are you up to, Sir _chancellor_ of Niflheim...?” 

Ardyn smiles down at him. “Quite the bold yet wary soul aren't you. So attentive.”

“Man.” Prompto makes a face. “Why do you have to talk like that all the time.”

“So, do you care to accompany me after all?” Ardyn asks, ignoring his question.

“Uhhh.” God, he wishes his brain was faster than this. He didn't think this far, actually, he wasn't thinking at all! “Nah...?" Prompto settles, "Yeah, nah. No, I think I'm good here! Safe.” 

“Don’t be silly, you haven’t been safe ever since you stepped off that accursed rock. Now, come now. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Well, _that’s_ not reassuring at all. “Yeahhh, I don't think so. Daemons are no joke, y’know.”

Ardyn chuckles, and his lips pull his smile wider. His voice is low and slow, words dragging like silk, as he says, “Oh, you have no _i-dea_.”

Ardyn swiftly extricates his wrist from Prompto's grip and drapes a jovial arm over his shoulders, a hand gently curling over the smooth skin of his deltoid. The weight of his arm pins him in place. But the grip is loose, he could shake him off if he wanted to. 

He can't.

A knot of fear ties under his lungs when he realizes he can’t move. 

What—? 

He tries to twist— writhe— and only succeeds in turning his head slightly towards Ardyn, pressed warmly against his side. It's barely more than an inch, but it's enough to see in his periphery the amusement softly curling at the corners of Ardyn’s lips, the mock fondness in his half-lidded eyes. 

Or is it pity?

“Oh Prompto, your friends are _so_ lucky to have you,'' Ardyn says as he pulls Prompto tighter into his half-embrace, as if in camaraderie. He spins them around and drags Prompto along his step. Prompto nearly stumbles on the pivot and tries to will his legs to stop, to plant themselves into the dirt, as Ardyn directs them into the seclusion of the woods, away from the open safety of the haven. But his legs aren't listening to him. They just follow Ardyn's lead in easy steps. 

“Or perhaps _I'm_ the lucky one.” The smile Ardyn flashes him is downright predatory.

Prompto swallows. Luckily, his tongue is still his own unlike the rest of his fricking body. “W-wait, wait wait! Um—” _what the fuck is going on, what did you do to me_ — “where are you taking me?” his voice nearly squeaks as it pitches up into a terrified whisper. 

“Oh, sweet sweet Prompto. All I am doing is merely escorting you through these hazardous woods. We can have a nice chat along the way. Have a nice _bonding_ moment or two.” A twig snaps under his foot, timed just right with his words. 

Ardyn tightens grip on his shoulder, and Prompto winces and instinctively glances at the source of pain. 

His breath stutters in his throat. 

His eyes widen in horror at the sight of black ink-like veins snaking across his skin. No... _Into_ his skin. He feels it now. The invasive, trickling creep spreading from the point of contact through his body. It feels wrong. Like blood flowing the wrong way. How had he not felt it until now? Prompto can't tell if it's his anxiety or the sensation that makes him want to hurl. Help. He has to call for help. He parts his mouth—

“Do not scream.”

And he doesn't. His words suddenly fall dead on his submissive tongue. And oh, Prompto has never been more terrified in his life.

“I must admit. I fairly want you for myself. But I don’t think dear Noctis will want to share, being so spoiled after all. And I have to say, nor do I.” Ardyn’s wink sinks a chuck of ice deep into Prompto’s core.

Ardyn whisks out his unoccupied arm. “But simply stealing you away is no fun, and I’m feeling magnanimous. So let’s play a game for the sake of giving you a chance and having fun. Win, and you carry on with your companions on your little quest for destiny just as you always have. Lose, and you will be mine. Simple,” Ardyn ends with a drawn-out note of self-satisfaction.

“But!” Ardyn says with a snap. “Before I lay the rules! Say, Prompto... how much do you know about the Starscourge?” 

Ardyn pauses for a moment as if to wait for Prompto’s reply. Prompto all but screams at him with his eyes. 

“Oh? Tongue-tied? Oh, right.” And then the asshole just fucking laughs. “I apologize.” 

_Then let me talk!_ Prompto screams internally. _How are you even doing this to me!?_ Panic rises up in his chest and builds; however, it’s trapped in his chest, unable to get out. He can't even hyperventilate. He feels like he’s going to burst. He’s a prisoner in his own body. He clenches his jaw so hard his teeth hurt.

Ardyn carries on, indifferent to Prompto’s anguish. “There's a common misconception that catching the scourge will turn you into a daemon. Not always so.

“Did you know that the Starscourge was once called the ‘vanishing disease’? They said those who succumbed simply disappeared. Poof.” Ardyn pulses his fingers in a blooming gesture. “Into thin air. Of course, it wasn’t just air, it was a haze, a dark, noxious miasma. You’ve seen the very same occur in the demise of daemons. I’m sure you've seen something familiar in the death throes of something else as well.”

 _Magitek..._ Prompto isn't dumb enough to not get what Ardyn’s hinting at but... he’s doesn’t know where he’s is going with this... Doesn’t want to know... Prompto swallows because that’s all that he’s permitted to do.

“Yes, there are those who cultivated it for their own purposes. They managed to fine-tune the daemonification process down to a science. Manage to produce _thousands_ of those whose blood is tainted by the scourge but remained intact despite, their bodies still mostly human. They're not quite unlike you. 

“But of course that isn't to say that they are left unscathed.” Ardyn stops suddenly with a crunch of dead leaves, Prompto’s own feet halting simultaneously.

“Because what the scourge doesn’t do to your body—” Ardyn seizes him by underneath his jaw, fingers pressing painfully into the tender flesh in the hollow of the bone, forcing him to meet his gaze and see the rivulets of black ooze suddenly dripping from his eyes and teeth over his paling skin— “does to your _soul._ ” 

He lets go of Prompto as abruptly as he grabbed him, releasing him like some inconsequential letter. “So fear not, my dear Prompto! You won't be turning into a monster, nor will you burn away into mist. No, what's going to happen to you—” something kicks the back of his legs, knocking him down onto his knees with a painful thud, and when he blinks up, Ardyn is bearing down at him with a sinister grin, lips slowly enunciating his next few words— “will be _so. Much. More. Fun._ ”

Ardyn crouches down in front of him, softening his smile to somewhere between amused and commiserating, but the disarming effect is lost when his skin is still ashen and marred with daemon blood. “I am going to bestow you a special gift. No need to fear about becoming mindless, I am not so cruel to strip you of your individuality and make you hollow like the rest. It's what makes you so enticing after all. I wouldn't want you to become a _bore_ by the time I collect you. Ruins the whole point of our game.” 

Ardyn reaches for his face and Prompto’s pulse quickens and pounds loudly in his ears, but Ardyn only brushes his bangs to the side— slick, stained fingers graze his eyelids, _too close too close—_ and cards his hand through his hair, staining his locks, uncomfortably gentle.

Ardyn settles his hand on Prompto’s shoulder and draws his other hand languidly up to his chest. Ardyn hooks a finger in the collar of his tank top and tears downwards, just enough to grant access to the bare skin of his torso. His oil-spill black fingertips press lightly into his left pec. “Well, without further ado.” His fingers trace an idle shape on his skin. “Here is my gift to you.”

And then, his hand just sinks in, with minimal resistance, like liquid.

Prompto gasps at the intrusion. The hand isn't in his _flesh_ , no blood spilling out of a wound, no tissues ripping like when a sabertooth gouges its prey, no wound to even speak of, but at the same time, it’s unmistakably, impossibly, maddeningly _there_ , displacing his flesh, stirring inside him idly. And it _hurts_. When it moves, Prompto’s entire body spasms involuntarily— _please take it out take it out take it out—_ he can feel every twitch, every flex of every digit, and Prompto's own hand twitches in his lap, desperately wanting to grab Ardyn’s wrist and yank him out. But his body still won’t obey him. He’s stranded in revolting violation, trapped in his own body, drowning in nauseating pain. 

The hand pushes in deeper and curls around what feels like his heart. Prompto gasps. He feels fingers stroking the walls of his maybe-heart as if in consideration, and shuddering revulsion rises up into his mouth.

“Oh, you've got _such_ a lovely heart,” Ardyn marvels with saccharine wonderment. “A heart of gold! Sensitive. Tender. Beautiful... I'm endlessly glad you never became one of _them_. To harvest something so precious to distill into an insignificant core would have been _such_ a _waste_. To think I might have never gotten a chance to play with you.” 

Prompto doesn’t even have enough presence of mind to even register what Ardyn is talking about when he tightens his grasp around his heart and the pain in his chest suddenly spikes into an unbearable _burn_. A scream tears out of his throat despite Ardyn's hold. 

"Shhshhshhh." Ardyn silences him with a press of a stained finger to Prompto's parted lips. It touches his teeth. It tastes like acrid, bitter blood.

Prompto tries to throw himself back away from the searing pain, gasping raggedly, but Ardyn's grip on him is firm. He barely squirms. He feels like he's about to pass out.

“You take the scourge so _well_ ,” Ardyn coos. “I never expected less, considering what you are.” Prompto blinks at him through wet lashes (when did he start crying?), and Ardyn’s looking at him like he _knows_ something.

Ardyn swipes a thumb over his damp cheek. “Nearly done. It won't be much longer,” he says as if he's trying to comfort. Prompto just closes his eyes, hoping his words are true.

Something taps on his cheek, and Prompto rouses awake with a jerk. When did he pass out? 

Prompto is still half-dazed, his vision slowly focusing, when he hears Ardyn's voice, “Now that wasn't so bad was it?” 

Prompto scrambles away backwards on his ass in alarm, and belatedly, he realizes that Ardyn’s hand is no longer impaling him and he can finally move. His hand shoots through the rip in his shirt and his fingers clutch at his bare breast. Nothing’s there, nothing to indicate that Ardyn ever shoved a hand into him but the fast, frantic beating of his heart. There’s not even a single smear of black on him, and when he looks at his shoulder, the web of black veins is gone as well as if it never existed. 

His eyes dart back to Ardyn, face no longer looking like a cold, daemonified corpse, and he’s giving him this approving smile like he’s some doctor who gave a child their first shot.

“I remember the first time I ever hosted the scourge,” Ardyn says nostalgically. He props a cheek on his fist as he sits on his haunches. “Having daemon coursing through your blood can be quite uncomfortable at first, if not distressing, but I've come to appreciate the company. I'm sure you can get accustomed to it as well. You seem quite the resilient type.” 

Shakingly, Prompto replies, “F-fu-uck, _fuck_ you.”

“What did I say. So lively after all that.” Ardyn claps.

“What-what the hell do you want?” Prompto heaves a shuddering breath. “What the fuck is your game?”

“Ah yes, our game. Mustn't forget. I'm sure you aren’t too dense to realize what's now in your blood. It will be, say, a test of loyalty if you will. I'm sure you will figure out how to play as you go.” Ardyn smiles blithely at him, and Prompto grits his teeth and glares at him with concentrated resentment.

Ardyn continues, “If you win, you will get to stay and live and die with your friends. If you lose, well. You won't have any more friends to travel with anyways. You will have to find new companions! And I think you'll find my company—"

He falls silent when Prompto shoots him in the face.

“Go to hell,” Prompto utters scorningly at Ardyn’s unmoving form lying in the dirt.

After a beat, Prompto drops his hand into his lap with an uneven exhale. He keeps his gun in his hands, not yet dismissing it into the armiger, finding comfort in its weight. 

He just sits on the earth among the decaying leaves, absently staring at the decorative etching on his revolver, giving himself a few moments to collect himself. To breathe after that fucking nightmare.

“That wasn't very nice...” 

Prompto snaps his head up, eyes widening at Ardyn’s unscathed body, rising to his feet in front of him with a swagger. His stomach drops with dread. 

Prompto whispers, “ _What the fuck,_ ” shakingly raising his gun at the monster before him. “ _What the fuck._ ”

Ardyn doesn’t even acknowledge it. He just dusts off his stupid overcoat. “Now don’t go telling your friends of what transpired tonight. I do have to tell you, contrary to the popular saying, it _will_ hurt to try.” Ardyn sweeps his hat off the ground, and when Prompto blinks, he’s gone.

There’s a snap in the brush behind him. 

“Hey, Prompto?” 

Prompto whips around, gun at ready. 

It’s Noctis. It’s thankfully just Noctis. Just looking around for him in these damned woods. A flush of relief washes over him and he lowers his gun.

“Noct!” Prompto calls out and struggles to get onto his feet, shaking like a newborn fawn as he does.

“Prompto!” Noctis exclaims when he turns to find him on the ground on his hands and knees. Noctis navigates his way through the trees and when he reaches him, he helps him up with a kinda painful yank. “What the hell are you doing out here? It's dangerous to be out, idiot.”

Prompto winces. “I,” Prompto struggles to get his thoughts together because where does he even _start_ , “it was— I saw Ardyn! He—!” Then a piercing pain in his chest makes him gasp and sends him back onto his knees.

“Woah!” Noctis catches him and firmly grips him by his upper arm so he doesn’t plant face first into the dirt. “You alright there? What was it about Ardyn?”

“Gaaahgh,” is all Prompto manages. He tries again. “D-dae—” And then his heart is shredding into two. Or three. Or several. He doesn’t know. All he knows he can’t talk. Prompto clutches his chest with crossed arms. It feels like it's going to split right open and spill all his parts if he doesn’t and, for all Prompto knows, he might really die like that if he says another word. Through the haze of pain, he vaguely recalls Ardyn's last warning to him, and it dawns on him that, oh shit, Ardyn was being literal about that. _Fuck_. 

“Ne-... nevermind... It’s nothin’...” Prompto swallows.

“Alright then.” Noctis unceremoniously hauls him back up and dusts off the bits of leaves sticking to Prompto's pants. Honestly, it's weird how he does that for him, with the amount of rolling in the dirt they do during fights, Noct especially has become too lazy to bother. But at the same time, it's kinda nice. Once Noctis makes sure he won't topple over again, he asks, “You think you can walk on your own?”

“Yeah. Probably...” His chest still aches, but the feeling has subsided enough. He can deal for now. He just really wants to get back so he can just knock the fuck out. “I'll just holler if I fall on my ass again.”

“Good.” Noct pats his back. “Let’s get on then.” And he walks on ahead.

Prompto trails after Noctis in a bit of a daze. He's... well, he's _trying_ to think. His mind’s a mess. But there's just so much to register within in the last... hour? Half-hour? It couldn't have been more, but it feels like he was in the forest with Ardyn for ages. But then again, there _is_ that gap when he passed out... How long was he out? He could’ve been unconscious, utterly defenseless against Ardyn, for hours. He shudders. Actually, he doesn’t want to think anymore. 

It’s not that hard though. His brain’s been getting more and more fuzzy with every step. He’s so tired. Plus there's this foreign feeling that's just been... simmering. Under his skin. Swimming through his veins. It’s been there ever since he woke up. It's easy to surrender to. To give it the reins. It feels like... a want. An itch. To... do something. 

It’s deep. Like something innate.

A desire for something to spill.

A compulsion to...

Raise the gun...

Cock...

Take aim...

“Prompto?”

He realizes that he’s about to shoot his best friend as he’s pulling the trigger.

He barely manages to pull the gun to the side in time, missing Noctis by a few gracious centimeters.

What the fuck.

Prompto drops his gun with shaking fingers and it finally falls back into the Armiger with a crystalline shatter and _what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck_.

He was about to _kill_ him.

Prompto looks at Noctis’s face horrified.

And Noctis stares back at him. Impassive. 

Silent.

“No-Noctis— I-I dunno why— Noct, I just— I’m so fucking sorry.” He doesn't understand what just happened. He’s horrified and so confused. He lowers his head, weighed down by guilt. 

The stony silence drags on long enough to sow some anxiety. Why isn’t he yelling at him? Fuck. He hates him. He’s never going to fucking forgive him. He fucked up. He majorly fucked up the most precious friendship he’s ever had. They should abandon him in the middle of nowhere— if they don’t execute him that is— and—

And Noctis just... sniffs? Prompto looks up. Noct is giving him this weird... smirk. The raised arch of his eyebrows is out-of-place and his lips are slanted slightly off in a way that Prompto can only call... conceding.

His face doesn't really look Noct-like at all.

“Noct..?”

“I may have underestimated you, Prompto. I applaud your willpower.'' It's Noct’s face. It's _his_ voice, but. The tone is not. Not at all. Prompto takes an instinctive step back in dawning horror. The man in front of him continues, “Although, it would've been safe to pull the trigger just this once. I'd say you lost your only chance to get it out of your system. A missed opportunity. Oh well.”

Noctis (no, not Noctis) pulls out Ardyn's hat from out of nowhere and dons it at a tilt on his head. The brim of it obscures Not-Noct’s eyes but not his lips pressed into a feline smile. 

“We've walked long enough. Allow me to take you back.”

And then he _warps_ into his face.

Before Prompto can even stagger back, Not-Noctis bids warmly, “Goodnight, Prompto.” 

Then he smashes Prompto’s head into a tree and everything goes dark.

  
  


Prompto wakes up. He’s lying on his back on something cold and hard. Absently, he blinks up at the murky, overcast sky through the gaps in the canopy above. As awareness slowly trickles back into him, he rolls his neck to the side. It takes him a few seconds to realize he’s lying at the edge of the haven. Immediately, he rolls over and scrambles in on his hands and knees. 

The moment he passes the boundary, an overwhelming, prickling sensation suffuses his whole body and nearly has him crawling back out. 

Prompto shudders and smothers down the creeping nausea. There’s no way he's going back out. He bites his lip and stares tensely out into the darkness between the trees. 

He continues watching for several minutes until his nerves finally subside and decide: he's gone. He heaves a sigh and all but collapses onto his ass and swipes a hand over his face covered in cold sweat. Apprehensively, he turns to look at the tent. 

He... he wants to sleep. He wants to burrow under the covers and nestle comfortably between his friends (safe) and forget this ever happened. But his hands recall the cold, steel heft of his gun. They remember the comfort. Wrong, disturbing, and terrifying comfort. Plus there's that persistent disquiet in his blood that's decidedly _not_ his anxiety telling him to go inside.

Unease settles into his nerves. 

He doesn’t think he can sleep.

He doesn’t think he should.

Prompto opts to collapse into a chair by the remains of the long dead and cold fire and plays King's Knight until dawn.

  
  


‘Uncomfortable’ is an understatement. Under the sun, being a host for the scourge is _agonizing_. 

When the morning comes and the sky clears enough for the sunrise to spill over camp, Prompto is near feverish. Like his skin is barely keeping the shit inside him (the infection) from boiling away under the light of the sun. Prompto had remembered the state of his tank top just shy of an hour into a session of mindless gaming, somehow the huge, conspicuous, drafty rip right down his front had completely slipped his mind. Luckily, he had plenty of the dusk left to spare, well before any of his companions would wake and be graced by the sun, to dig up a spare tank as silently as he possibly could. But he wishes he had chosen something with longer sleeves. Any sleeves. To cover and shield himself better from the unrelenting, beating rays. His skin feels thin. Pulled taut, sheer, and tenuous like a dollar store plastic bag filled with warm-hot sludge. 

He can just barely tamp down the nausea. Idly, he taps on his phone, failing the quest challenge he picked up. 

Noctis— Prompto stares, yeah, normal Noctis— comes tumbling out of the tent, and Prompto just catches the sight of Gladio’s foot booting his ass outside before the flap flutters back down. It looks like it's one of those days Gladio’s forcing Noctis to go on an early morning jog. Noctis groans as he hides his face in his arms still sprawled facedown on the hard ground, stubbornly recumbent like he honestly could and would go back to sleep right there. Unfortunately, Gladio is aware that sunlight is the best persistently annoying wake up call which is exactly why he kicked him out first in the first place.

Prompto grins, only half-faking it. Really. 

“Rise and shine!” Prompto says brightly. “You should probably get up before Gladio steps on you, buddy.”

“Shut it, asshole,” Noctis groans sleepily as he rolls over and slings an arm over his eyes. Cute. He looks so unguarded. Vulnerable— nope! Prompto consciously kills that intrusive thought. 

Noctis lies there for a few more precious moments of shut-eye before he snorts as he sluggishly sits up, truly with all the grace of royalty. Blearily, he rubs his eyes.

“Hnn? What?” Noctis blinks at him and furrows his brow in confusion. “You're up already, Prompto?” He shakes the sleep off himself a bit more and looks at Prompto’s face. “Wow. You look like hot garbage right now.”

He certainly feels like it, but, “Wow. Rude.”

“No, really. You’re kinda really pale. Dude, did you sleep?”

“Uuh—”

“Bro...”

“I. I’ve been grinding.” Prompto turns his ‘Defeated’ screen towards him for his hasty excuse. But is it still an excuse if it’s true? 

Noct’s mouth skews the side as he gives him a skeptical look. He drops his eyes down to his phone and stares a bit blankly at his screen for a few seconds. Then he squints and goes, “Hang on.” Noctis grabs his phone and examines it closer. “What the FUCK. You cleared fifteen event quests?? Without _me_??? We said we’ll do those together, what the hell man. I'm making you carry me for the next several co-ops.” Noctis pouts.

“Ah shit. Sorry. I forgot.” Because things tend to slip your mind when you’re vehemently trying to ignore the quiet bloodlust caused by the daemons brimming inside you by throwing yourself into a mobile game for hours. You know. Normal stuff.

It was kinda working at least. 

Actually, he thinks he’s managing now. The weird haziness hasn’t returned. Plus, he’s great at resisting urges anyways; he got a lot of experience in his adolescence. This is just another exercise in self-control. He just gotta focus. Easy! Just bash down every no-good thought with the butt of his gun whenever it rears its head. Hm. That’s a suspiciously specific metaphor. Not his best one. 

But anyways, it can’t be that hard...

When Gladio comes out of the tent and hauls a whining Noctis off, Prompto waves after them with his ‘everything is perfectly a-ok’ smile that he perfected in high school.

When they disappear behind the thick of the trees, he drops both his hand and his smile. He lets his eyes linger off into the direction they’ve gone before he shifts his gaze to the tent where Ignis still rests. He worries his lips. Then his tongue. 

He inhales. Holds. Exhales.

He can do this. He can do this. If he can’t— no. That's not even an option. He _has_ to do this.

He takes another steadying, deep breath. He’s not gonna let this stupid daemon blood thing take over him. Whatever shit that's inside him— disease? daemons?— can suck it. Ardyn can suck it.

...The thought of Ardyn being the thing dwelling inside him makes him shudder.

He loves his friends... Ignis, Gladio, Noct. They’re everything to him. The only things he has left. He would rather die than lose ~~control~~ ~~his head~~ ~~the game~~ them. 

Slowly, he closes his hand, collecting his resolve into his fist. He presses it against his chest.

He holds it close to his nervous heart. 

Lest he forget.

  
  


Prompto has been kinda off. 

Noctis watches him suddenly jolt and slap himself— _hard_ , he can hear it despite the distance they’re apart— in the face. 

No, he’s _definitely_ off his game.

Something’s been eating at him for the past day or two. It’s kinda hard not to notice while they’re mid-hunt like this. That he’s kinda more scatterbrained than he usually is. But at the same time, it's hard to tell what exactly is wrong considering Noctis is _kinda_ busy trying to not die. He can’t tell if Prompto is distracted or just out of it. Either way, his shots aren’t as sharp as they usually are. He hasn’t taken down as many as he usually would, and Prompto always tries harder than he has to to pull his own weight. With a vehemence. 

When he observes Prompto headshotting a yellowtooth, Noctis bisects another and corrects himself. No, Prompto isn’t really missing any shots. He’s clean as usual... He’s just... slower. Delayed? Definitely not taking half as many shots. 

Noctis warps and drives his blade through the final standing beast. Plus... Prompto's taken to wearing longer sleeves for some reason, and he almost never fucking does that.

Damn, he hopes Prompto isn’t coming down with something.

Noctis dismisses his Engine Blade and jogs up to Prompto. Up close, he looks even more dazed. He hasn’t noticed his presence yet either. And everyone but Prompto has put their weapons away. He’s still holding his loosely in both hands. 

Noctis frowns and places his palm on Prompto’s forehead. 

He feels normal. And just a bit sweaty, but that's to be expected after a hunt. 

Noctis purses his lips in puzzlement and just a little bit of disgust while Prompto jolts at the contact out of his reverie and splutters.

“Noct???”

“You back down to Eos finally?” Noctis asks as he swipes his hand on his pants.

“Huh?” Prompto looks down at his hands. “Oh.” He dismisses his gun.

“Hey. You’re not hiding that you're sick are you? Because you're doing a pretty terrible job at that if you are.” 

“What—no!” Prompto denies way too quickly. “What are you talking about, I'm fiiine! Just peachy! Just, just— uhhhhhh...” Prompto’s fumbling slows down. “I just... have a lot on my mind...” 

Noctis tongues his cheek in thought. He hums. “You know you can talk to me about whatever, right?”

An indecipherable expression flickers across Prompto’s face. He's silent for a moment as his gaze drifts off Noctis to the side. 

It’s only a brief moment. Prompto looks back at him and gives him a half-smile. 

“Yeah...” Prompto says. “I know.”

  
  


Ardyn was right. He does get used to it. To the dizzying nausea of the sun at least. Enough to ditch the jacket so Noct would stop being so suspicious about his health. 

He’ll never get used to the fact that every drop of his poisoned blood wants to murder his friends though. 

It’s dangerous. He had underestimated how strong the urge is. Especially when they are on a hunt and he has an excuse to have a gun in his hands. At least when it’s put away, he can kick the impulse into some brain locker and forget about it (almost). 

But when it’s in his hands, it’s terrifying. His aim keeps on wanting to drift. A magnetic tug that keeps on trying to train his gun on something else. _Someone_ else...

In the battle they just finished, he had to make an active effort to hold onto his focus. Had to double, triple check to make sure what was lined up in his sights wasn't human before he pulled the trigger. Noct’s warping around didn’t make it any easier.

But he managed. It's exhausting, but he's managing. He wipes the sweat out of his eyes. If he can do it for one hunt, he can hang on for more. 

He’s not deluding himself.

It’s no problem.

  
  


Ignis idly stirs the pan as he considers Prompto beside him. 

Ignis had asked for some assistance in preparation of their dinner this evening, and Prompto had gladly lent his hand. Currently, Prompto’s on the task of chopping parsley for garnish. 

Prompto had responded with his usual chipper eagerness, but it hasn’t passed Ignis’s notice that something has been disturbing Prompto. Has been for some time.

Even now he seems... dazed. Absent to be more accurate. And yet, he seems strangely focused as well, eyes vaguely fixated on his knife.

“Ah!” Prompto cries and hisses through his teeth when he slices the skin over a knuckle of his index finger.

But apparently not on what he is actually cutting. 

Ignis creases his brow in concern. With how quickly Prompto brought his finger to his mouth, he barely got to see the blood bead. He pushes up the bridge of his glasses and asks with mild alarm, “Prompto, are you alright? Do you need a potion?”

Prompto’s reply is a bit muffled as he sucks on his knuckle, “S’fine! Good! It's just a lil baby cut.” A short few seconds pass as Ignis subjects him to his scrutiny. “Okay, maybe it does sting a little bit,” Prompto bashfully admits, and a bit of tongue shyly peeks out between his lips to press onto the wound.

Ignis sighs. “I’ll go get you a bandage.”

When he returns, Prompto staring at his hand, raised in front of his face, with an almost stricken expression. 

“Oh no.” That’s worrying. “Is it worse than you thought? Let me see.” Ignis extends an open hand toward him.

Prompto yelps. “Nope!” He essentially smacks the backs of his fingers against his mouth as he hurriedly rekisses the wound. He flaps his other hand dismissively and his reassurances are a rushed stream of words as he talks awkwardly against his hand, “I’m fine, I’m fine, _gucci_ , nothing to worry about, I'll take that, thanks!” and he swipes the kit right out of his hands and essentially dashes to the tent.

Ignis stares at the fluttering entrance of the tent a bit baffled. That was hardly anything smooth or subtle. Ignis has half the mind to follow him into the tent in concern, but the pan sizzles harshly, demanding his immediate attention or else it’ll threaten to burn their nearly done dinner.

It's no matter, however, when Prompto comes out of the tent a minute or two later, as chipper as ever with a fresh bandage wrapping his finger. Prompto bears a sheepish grin and waggles his fingers to demonstrate their full functionality. He returns to help set up dinner; however, it does not pass Ignis’s notice that Prompto passes the cutting board in favor of gathering their dishes and utensils for plating. But Ignis hardly minds. All that’s left is just a quick chop.

Prompto otherwise seems fine as he falls back into his usual chatter as they all settle down to eat.

So Ignis shelves the incident away to the back of his mind.

  
  


So fun fact about being infected with the Starscourge. His blood is black now! Just like the daemons, cool cool coolcoolcool, totally not fucked up in the slightest! But not as fucked up as apparently not needing potions any more. Turns out daemon blood also gave him healing powers too. 

He had found that out when he had gone inside the tent and the cut had already healed before he could take out a bandage. He won't be a waste of resources anymore at least, so that's great. Really great. Hah... 

He still slapped a band-aid on anyways because Ignis had seen the knife slip through his skin. And if Ignis Scientia is anything, it’s perceptive. There's no way he wouldn't get suspicious if the cut was just. Gone. It's terrifying to think about what would've happened if he saw. 

So he doesn’t. He doesn’t think about it at all. 

Because if Prompto Argentum is anything, it’s a coward. 

Later, on another anxious hunt, he has a close call. He catches the oncoming slash a second too late and pays for it with a deep gash left in his upper arm, a few inches above his bandanna. The splash of blood vaporizes before it even hits the ground. He’s lucky nobody saw. The others are all too far away, shouting cues and heads-ups to dodge and lay blows. They’re all too far off to share his horror of watching the black ooze well within the gash and knit together the fibers of sliced muscle. 

He doesn't feel too good. He nearly staggers, knees weak. He never was great with blood, but this is on another level. He can't pass out now though. Not when he has to cover the guy’s backs and blow (the right) heads off. He tears his eyes away from the self-stitching flesh and turns back to the fight. 

By the time the battle is over, it’s just a scratch. Even the blood has burned off, not a trace of it left. All evidence of it ever existing will likely be gone by the time they get back. 

That’s a good thing.

He tugs his bandanna up higher over the slowly fading scar. 

  
  


When Gladio wakes up at ass o’clock in the morning, he wakes up pretty damn inconvenienced at that. 

Figures when you tell a guy to go to fucking sleep, he ends up cuddling you while drooling onto your side of the blanket when you have to fucking piss. Gladio had dragged Prompto’s ass into the tent last night because he was practically dead on his feet and could’ve been bowled over by a chocobo chick (much less that dualhorn on yesterday’s hunt). And this is the kinda thanks he gets.

Prompto somehow ended up hugging him with an arm snaked around his neck. He’s hugging him pretty tightly too for someone dead to the world. His neck is slotted into the crook of Prompto’s elbow while Prompto’s other arm is locked over his hand and slipped behind Gladio’s head. It’s not enough to choke him out but there's a definite pressure on his throat. Gladio huffs mildly amused. If it were any tighter, it would be a literal sleeper choke hold.

But Prompto’s dead asleep. It's obvious by the way Prompto snores right into his ear (much to his annoyance). The kid couldn’t be in deeper slumber.

There’s no question that the guy’s got a bad case of insomnia, he even admitted himself, but it's one thing to have trouble falling asleep and another to be actively avoiding it. Prompto’s a fool to think that he wouldn’t notice that he had been the last one to ‘go to bed’ for the past week or so. He had been giving him the benefit of the doubt, but when he still hadn’t come in at 1 a.m., when they were planning to get up early to go on a supply run to prepare for a daemon hunt, Gladio was like, alright, sat up, and wrangled his sleep-deprived ass to bed. He made sure Prompto drifted off before falling asleep himself.

Honestly though, how did he even get his arms up around him like this in his sleep? He's really got a good hold on him (it’s sincerely impressive) and he can’t get him to let go.

Gladio taps Prompto’s arm. “Hey, if you're gonna cuddle someone to death, let it be sleeping beauty here and not me. Let go, I need to piss.”

Prompto snorts into consciousness. “Huhn— what?” Prompto shifts behind him. “Oh fuck!” He whips his arms off his neck. “Sorry!”

Gladio gets up and rolls his neck. “It’s cool. Sorry I had to wake you up, but you were really putting me through the ringer.”

“Aha.” There’s a suspended pause only filled by the sound of Prompto shifting slightly under the covers. It lasts just a second too long that it passes over into weird territory. “...Didn’t mean to do that. Sorry.” 

“The hell are you so awkward for? I was joking, obviously. As if you could kill me in your sleep,” Gladio scoffs and reaches down to roughly tousle Prompto’s hair.

Prompto squawks and swats at his hand. “You say that but I’m pretty damn sure that you could kill someone in _your_ sleep. All you gotta is roll over.” The tension tugging at his face is mostly effaced by the grin he has plastered on but there’s a trace of it still lingering. Just a trace. Weird.

“Hm, I don’t think I heard you the first time. Wanna run that by me again?” 

“Nope.”

“Alright, shut up and go to sleep then.” Gladio extracts himself from the covers. “Better be sleeping when I come back or I’ll kick your ass.”

“Yeah-huh, gotcha, one shut-eye coming up.” And Prompto stills under the sheets, eyes shut. Satisfied, Gladio takes his exit.

When he comes back into the tent, it’s obvious Prompto is still up. His body is too weirdly tense for someone who’s supposed to be drifting off into dreamland. Gladio scrunches his face in disapproval. 

Prompto, probably sensing his disappointment, suddenly sits up. He holds his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I know— please don’t kick my ass— but I can’t help it okay! And I think I gotta pee too, actually. Think I drank too much soup? Definitely drank too much soup.” He nods his head at a tilt with a hand on his chin in solemn self-confirmation.

Gladio sighs with resigned exasperation. “Get out. Go do your biz.” He crawls into his spot and lightly backhands Prompto’s shoulder. “Don’t take an hour.”

“Roger that.” He salutes and quietly scrambles out as non-disruptively as one can possibly scramble out of a tent. 

Gladio sighs and lies on his back. He pulls out his phone. It’s too dark to crack open a hardback, but he figures he can catch up on few more chapters of this astonishingly stupid romance webnovel he recently picked up instead. The love interest is so smitten and so stupid. The MC is so dense and even more fucking stupid. The developments are absurd. It’s ridiculous.

But shit, he loves it though.

He gets utterly absorbed into the nonsense. He goes through three chapters with his screen on darkmode before he drops his phone on his face. He gets through another two lying on his side before his eyes start drooping too hard to even read a word.

His lagging brain half-notes that Prompto is still gone when he succumbs to the siren call of sleep. 

  
  


So it was kinda distressing learning that his fucked-up blood can heal him. But not nearly as distressing as learning that daemons don't attack him anymore.

He had been dreading the daemon hunt, the demands of his poisoned blood are louder, harder to quell at night, but the reward of the quest was high and well-worth. How could he even object anyways? As they made their plans, Prompto grinned, threw in his own two cents, and suffered privately in his ever-present misery.

When the night fell and the daemons emerged, he found himself having an easier time than anticipated despite the unwelcome hunger surging more and more heavily through his veins. The bloodlust has been getting harder to squash (or was he just losing his touch) by each passing night, the heady pulse chanting a murderous _kill kill kill_ mantra through all his thoughts and limbs. Casting aside the fog had taken monumental effort, but he found a sliver of clarity by digging his ragged nails deep into his hand that clenched his gun. He grasped onto the grounding pain like a lifeline. But asides from the dangerous compulsion being kept at bay, there was nothing to distract him from easily picking off stragglers one by one. 

It only took a little bit more than small expense of his hard-fought lucidity to ponder and realize why that had been so.

It’s just another _wondrous_ gift of the scourge. 

He feels too sick about it to call it a perk.

Prompto laughs bitterly under his breath. Before it was like the daemons had a single-minded goal to kill him and only him. The others had often teased him about it as they cracked a curative or two over him whenever one of the bastards had gotten the better of him. Now, the daemons couldn’t be damned to pay him any mind even as he feeds bullets into their skulls. In any other case, not having a target painted on his back would’ve been a sweet relief.

For once, he wishes the daemons would take him out of his misery.

But of course, why would they do that to one of their kin?

Dusk has fallen, heralding another godsforsaken night.

He can’t do this anymore. 

His finger twitches as his hand twists up his hair. He tugs a bit too hard on several clutched, tangled locks, and his leg bounces wildly in his camp chair.

He clasps his hand down on his knee, forcing it still, and tries to keep himself from shaking apart.

He managed to last just one more pathetic day longer. To think he only held out for a week or so. Has it been less? Has it been more? He doesn’t know anymore. What’s time when all his days and nights were merged together into one stressful, taxing, tireless blur of constantly resisting his own damn self.

He doesn’t think he’s at the point where he can manage it anymore.

He's going crazy. And he's so tired. He's _so_ tired. Tired of the relentless, wordless screaming that needles at him at all angles. Egging him on to put a bullet through their brains. It's sickening. 

He hates it. 

He hates himself.

God, he's so scared too. Constantly under the threat of losing his grip. He’s terrified of falling asleep and finding himself waking among cold bodies.

Something inside him takes _delight_ in that thought. It’s utterly, viscerally upsetting.

It’s tearing him apart. He can’t do it anymore. He can’t, he _can’t_. He can't stand it. He doesn’t want to fight it anymore. He's so tired and on the verge of hysteria. But. But—! He doesn’t want to give in... Never. He won't. He can't. He can't! He could never. He’d rather _die_ —

Now that's a thought.

His finger itches to pull a trigger even now.

It'd be a peaceful evening, if it wasn't for his restless blood. Ignis and Noct are bickering about something. Probably about the dinner that’s being prepared right now. Ignis chuckles at Noctis, who pouts but shortly quirks up a corner of his mouth with a huff. Gladio is smirking also as he listens to their conversation as his eyes follow the lines of his book in the warm light of the campfire and sunset. They’re having a good evening today.

They'd be smiling as a bullet passes through each of their skulls—

 _Stop_ —

He staggers onto his feet. 

  
  


He leaves the haven quietly as he can. The sun has buried itself well under the horizon now. 

He stumbles through the darkness for a while. Mindlessly. When he finally stops, he doesn’t know where he is. How long it's been. He hopes it’s long enough. Far enough.

He drops to his knees, falling among tattered, filthy leaves. Maybe he can find a suitably similar mercy as them. A few crunch lifelessly under his shifting fingers. 

He feels a swelling pulse. He grinds his teeth in frustration, tears springing up in his eyes. Even this far apart from everyone, he can still feel the scourge mire within him all the same. Never giving him a moment of peace. 

He rakes his nails over his disgusting, stained heart, feeling it traitorously pump Ardyn, Ardyn, _Ardyn_ through his veins. He wants to claw him out. He wants him to die. He— he wants this to end... He lifts a shaking hand, hesitates for just a second before calling upon his Lion Heart. 

He stares at it resting within his palm. He thinks about his friends. He doesn’t think about what they might think. He doesn’t care (he does but it doesn’t matter). He just doesn't want to hurt them. He doesn't want to wrap his fingers around Gladio's neck and crush his throat. He doesn't want to take Ignis's own chef's knife and run him through. He doesn't want to pull a trigger and see the light leave his best friend’s eyes as he’s bleeding out on the ground through all his bullet holes—

He’s the worst. 

He can no longer stop their gruesome deaths from splaying out vividly in his mind. He’s terrible. Disgusting. The worst.

He runs his thumb over the grip. It would be better like this. It's too dangerous to be with them now. No, it's always _been_ dangerous, he's just been deluding himself that he could manage it, that he could deal with it, because he was too selfish to do anything otherwise. He's just been too fucking selfish to leave because he couldn't bear the thought of being alone, nowhere to go.

He reverses the gun in his grip. He takes it up in both his hands, to steady his hold by a modicum, and slips his right thumb through the trigger loop. 

Everyday he lives, every moment he spends with them smiling away like nothing’s fucking wrong, he risks losing _them_. 

He presses the muzzle up against his shirt. 

Digs it into his chest. 

At his infested heart.

It trembles against his flesh.

He closes his eyes.

It's better like this.

  
  


The pleasant aroma of Ignis’s cooking fills the evening air. Noctis’s stomach rumbles as the triumphant victory jingle of a mission clear plays from his phone. Satisfied with his progress, he closes the app and pockets his phone. After he stretches in his seat, he looks around camp and frowns in puzzlement.

“Hey,” Noct calls out. “Where the hell did Prompto go? He’s been gone for a while.”

“Noct, why don't you go ahead and fetch him,” Ignis says as he samples the soup. “Supper is nearly done. You aren’t being quite useful at the moment, anyways.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Noctis says, offended. Though, he clicks his tongue, considering. Shortly, he agrees, “Alright, I'll go.” He doesn’t really mind going after him. He actually _wants_ to go check up on Prompto; he’s been weirder than ever today, even more so than yesterday when he was vibrating with so much anxiety he could’ve phased. When Noctis asked, Prompto just shrugged him off. But hell if he’s gonna let him get away again when clearly whatever’s been eating at him has gotten worse. He’s worried. When Noctis finds him, he’s gonna pin him down and make him tell him _something_ before the day ends. 

He stands up from his chair and pulls out his phone. When he calls, a familiar 8-bit rendition of the chocobo tune rings from somewhere close. Noctis furrows his brow and turns toward the sound, and there’s Prompto’s cell, lying on the seat of the camp chair where Prompto was last seen. 

“Damn, he left his phone?” Noctis strolls over and picks it up. He cancels the call. “What the fuck Prompto...” 

Noctis looks into the dark trees with worry creasing his brow. The sun went down some time ago and it won’t be long until the daemons come out. Noctis starts walking toward the edge of the haven with a quickening step. _Fuck, which way did he go?_

Just as he’s about to step off the stone, the air cracks with a gunshot.

_What the fuck._

Noctis whips his head around wide-eyed and meets the equally alarmed gazes of Ignis and Gladio who are respectively already turning off the stove and closing his book and standing up from his chair. Noctis doesn't spend a millisecond longer to see if they follow, he turns towards the direction of the gunshot and warps.

The moment his foot hits the dirt, he breaks out of his stagger into a sprint. He can barely hear his steps over the pounding of his heart. 

It didn't sound too far away.

  
  


As Noctis hurtles through the foliage, his nervousness only grows. He hears nothing else. No gunshots. No shouting. No struggle. The forest is too silent asides from his ragged breaths and the crunch of his own footfalls. Maybe Prompto is fine and the shot fired is nothing to worry about, but something nags at him. Something's been off with Prompto. Has been for a while. And he didn’t do anything about it. Fuck. 

He hopes it's nothing.

Fuck, it’s dark. He’s fumbling to turn on the light on his lapel as he is trying to maintain his sprint when his foot catches on something large. He falls _hard_. He had just managed to click on his light as he fell, so when he flips around, a pale spotlight casts over what he fell. 

It's a body.

It’s _Prompto._

And he’s lying in a pool of slick black, with a gun in his hand, with a hole in his fucking chest.

“Fuck, Prompto!” Noctis cries out as he scrambles to his side, brain stuttering on what he should do. He pats his unresponsive face (he's still warm) before remembering to check his pulse (it’s not there, fuckfuckfuck). Noctis scrabbles to take out a phoenix down— and several other curatives along with it— and relief floods his being when it burns away on Prompto’s chest— _oh thank gods it’s not too late_ — but panic rushes back in when Prompto doesn’t wake. Even with the wound freshly healed, he remains motionless, and in the darkness, the blood splashed across his chest is just so starkly black against his skin, Prompto looks paler than death. 

No. 

No no no, the phoenix down worked, he's alive, _he's alive_. 

Noctis cracks open an elixir and tips the contents into Prompto's mouth because _what else is he supposed to do_.

Immediately, Prompto chokes an aborted breath and allows relief to inch back into Noctis again (because hey, at least it's something), but when Prompto continues to choke, fear beats it right back out. Noctis’s heart can’t take another loop of this harrowing emotional rollercoaster.

Prompto starts making these terrible, strangled noises like he’s being scored from the inside out, and then, with a horrible spasm, he coughs out thick, black sludge. As it dribbles down thickly over his cheeks, another layer of horror settles over Noctis when he realizes, all this black that he’s kneeling in... isn’t the familiar, deep, dark red of blood only appearing black in the dark. This slick, inky wetness coating his legs and arms isn’t just... blood.

Noctis frantically rolls Prompto onto his side so he doesn’t drown as he continues to gurgle and violently retch copious amounts of that terrible— _stuff_ — that Noctis doesn't want to think too deeply about right now. 

Noctis helplessly watches Prompto claw at his chest— a finger snags on the bullet hole in the shirt— face constricted and rasping between his gags like living is agony. A particularly harsh choke pulls with it a wretched cry from Prompto’s throat, and the sound of it sharply twists Noctis’s heart in petrified anguish. 

Finally when it ends, Prompto simply stills. His weary breaths are nearly inaudible in the silence that falls.

Prompto’s eyes flutter open by a sliver. He turns his head up towards Noctis’s own. His face is slack and blank, empty save for the exhaustion weighing his features. He meets Noctis’s eyes. Feebly, he drags his hand through the dirt, reaching for Noct’s hand.

Noctis meets him more than halfway. He tightly locks his fingers over Prompto’s. 

Wordlessly, Prompto’s eyes eventually slip close. He doesn’t stir again.

But he’s breathing. His chest rises and falls, faint but steady.

He’s just asleep.

Noctis wipes the black stuff from Prompto’s lips and cheeks, not caring whether or not it touches his skin. He’s covered in it anyways. He carefully takes him up into his arms, maneuvers him onto his back, and stands. 

He treks through quiet woods. Prompto’s breaths are warm against his neck. It’s a precious comfort.

  
  


Prompto wakes up gradually and piecemeal. He slowly opens his eyes to the sight of delicate light filtering through a nylon roof. He’s swaddled in the comfortable warmth of a sleeping bag with an additional blanket or two. He blinks at the brightened fabric above him, and it takes him a moment to realize the roiling sickness in his blood is absent.

He hears a soft sifting by his side. He turns his head and is met with Noct’s awfully stony glare. 

Prompto stares back. Noctis says nothing. 

“...” 

The silence stretches uncomfortably long.

“...Hi," Prompto says meekly, tentatively breaking the awkward silence before he’s suffocated by it. “...Am I alive?”

Noct’s face finally cracks with a twitch of fury. Incredulously, he starts, “‘Am I alive?’ ‘Am I _alive_?’ Is that all you have to fucking say after fucking shooting yourself in your heart, you asshole!?” Prompto cringes, but Noctis carries on with fervor, “Like what the hell! What the fuck! I found you lying in a pool of black blood! It was so fucked up! I just— it was so— why the fuck would you do that! Taking your life, whatever made you think that dying would be a genius idea?! I thought I— I thought you... You—!” Abruptly, Noctis deflates with a heavy sigh and swallows the rest of his words. His shoulders slump, and his fury seems to melt away into weary relief. After a pause, Noctis nudges Prompto’s forehead with his finger and says, “Of course, you’re alive, dumbass.” 

“Ah...” Prompto laughs awkwardly as he sits up using more effort than he anticipated. Despite whatever amount of sleep he got, exhaustion lingers deep in his bones. “You were really raring to chew me out the moment I woke up, huh.” He wasn’t prepared for it, but then again, he wasn’t expecting to be alive to face anything in the first place.

“What did you expect? I dunno what you were thinking, but did you ever think about how fucked up we would be over finding you dead? How fucked up _I_ would be?” Noctis half-heartedly tacks on, “Asshole.” 

“...Sorry...” Prompto apologizes because he doesn’t know what else he could say.

Noct’s face scrunches up in distaste like he ate a bitter lemon. “I don't think I wanted you to say _that_ , but honestly? I don't know what else I expected.” Noctis sighs and throws him this kinda... sad look. “Hey—”

A ruffle of fabric interrupts Noctis as Ignis slips through the entrance, Gladio ducking into the tent right after him.

“It's good to see you're finally awake, Prompto,” Ignis says as he appraises him with a careful, solemn look. He takes a seat behind Noctis.

“And judging from the volume of the vitriol he flamed you with, the princess really tore you a new one,” Gladio remarks casually, but he’s also watching him with a measure of his own concern as he sits down.

“I hope you have a very good explanation for why you chose to take your life privately without even thinking to approach us for help first.” Prompto winces at the note of disapproval in Ignis’s voice.

“It's not like I _didn't_ think it...” Prompto protests weakly.

“Yeah?” Noctis fixes him with a piercing glare. “Then why didn’t you.”

“It’s... complicated. Hey, I know I should explain stuff, but...” He'd rather not. Prompto rubs the back of his head. His heart recalls a phantom twist of pain, and a tiny, irrational seed of terror planted inside him knots his guts. “Can we talk about this later? I'm tired... Exhausted. And I’m kinda relishing the fact that—” _my blood doesn't actively want to kill all of you anymore_ — “...I don't have that gunk inside me anymore." Prompto brushes his hand over his chest, swipes it over the bullet wound that’s no longer there.

The three of them stare at him, and Prompto tries not to squirm uncomfortably under their scrutiny. They share a look with each other, darting eyes communicating volumes of silent debate that Prompto’s too anxious to parse. 

“Alright,” Ignis blessedly acquiesces with a soft voice. “We will let you rest. But do note, we are going to talk about this eventually.” 

“Because SOMEBODY didn't talk about it before,” Noctis adds and Prompto can’t help but hear an accusation in his tone that he wants to object. 

“Okay um, I know this sounds like an excuse, but I um...” Prompto shrugs a shoulder a bit helplessly, “physically couldn't.” 

“Now that’s the most cryptic shit you could've said,” Gladio says, arching a brow.

“No matter what valid reasons you may have had,” Ignis says and fixes Prompto with a stern look. “Please don’t resort to such drastic measures again.” 

“Trust me, I don’t want to...” Prompto really hopes he wouldn't have to.

“Hm. At least it doesn’t sound like you’re suicidal,” Gladio notes. He meets Prompto’s eyes, then lightly smirks. “And from your face, I bet you’d rather wanna conk out and dodge an interrogation for another few hours. But before that, at least eat something before you pass out. Iggy’s got lunch almost ready.” Gladio jerks a thumb towards the tent’s opening and starts to get up. “Plus, you've been unconscious for over a day and half,” he says right before he ducks out.

“Over a day!?” Prompto exclaims.

“Closer to two,” Ignis says. “Disregarding the harrowing nightmare experience of that previous evening, it hasn’t passed any of our notice that you’ve been forgoing sleep for several days. It’s no wonder you’ve been out for so long. Frankly, I’m relieved you woke up so soon. Feel free to catch up on more. But not before I stop Gladio from sneaking noodles into the stock and bring you something proper for you to eat.” And Ignis swiftly follows Gladio’s suit.

Once the tent flap obscures Ignis’s hurrying legs, Prompto glances at Noctis who hasn’t made a single move to follow after them. 

Noctis is quiet. He looks back at him, lips parted slightly, tentatively. 

“Hey,” he says. “I'm sorry.”

“What?” Prompto does a take, caught off-guard. “What for?”

“I knew something was up.” Noctis shifts his legs to hug his knee. “No matter whatever it was, feel like there was something I could’ve done, you know? To prevent this whole mess.” 

“What, no! That wasn’t on you. It wasn’t your fau—”

Noctis knocks some wind out of him as he collides into his chest and slings his arms around him. 

Noctis squeezes him tight and mumbles into Prompto’s shoulder, “I could’ve _lost_ you.”

Prompto widens his eyes and looks at the side of Noctis’s head, his hair soft against his cheeks. Slowly, Prompto brings up his arms and laces them across his back. The solace of Noctis’s hug sinks in, and without warning, tears spring up in his eyes, unbidden, the warmth of Noctis’s embrace finally cementing in the sense that he’s safe and free. Prompto’s chest overwhelmingly swells with relief, and he heaves in a sob through his teeth. Prompto nuzzles his face and buries his sobs into Noct’s shoulder as shudders rack his body. Noctis only brings him in closer, pressing him firmly against his body. He feels Noct’s hand gently rub his back in soothing motions. He relishes the feeling.

He lets himself cry it out for a while.

When his tears subside, Prompto slackens his hold but doesn’t let go. Noctis doesn’t seem intent on letting him go either. They stay loosely embraced in each other’s arms, supporting each other’s weight while comfortably sharing a space in which only the two of them exist. Prompto collects his breaths in the tender quiet that settles over them, the silence only disturbed by the soft sounds of their breathing and interspersed sniffles and the slightly distant clatter of kitchenware from beyond their tent-shaped bubble.

Prompto exhales. He picks at the hem of Noctis’s shirt. 

“Sorry about soaking your shirt,” Prompto murmurs.

Noct’s voice is a little hoarse like he was crying too when he replies, “I don’t think you’ve noticed the disgusting mess on your shoulder. Don’t worry, we’re even.”

“Aw dude, gross…”

“Hey, pot calling kettle black,” he can hear the pout in Noct’s voice which makes him laugh a little. Noctis joins in with his own light laughter.

Prompto’s body feels heavy and wrung out, but at the same time, the catharsis of crying in Noct’s arms makes him feel lighter than he's ever been in days. He becomes too tired to sit, so he slumps over sideways, dragging Noctis down with him, who lets out an “oof” when he goes down.

After days of stress and misery, he’s free from his personal torment. Despite exhaustion pulling him closer and closer to sleep, he can finally think clearly without having his thoughts being plagued by unrelenting bloodlust. In his precious, refound clarity, Prompto all of a sudden remembers the terms Ardyn gave him that started this whole nightmare a week or so ago. To think it was all just a ‘game’ to that bastard. 

_Ha_ , Prompto thinks spitefully. _Looks like I won, you asshole._

Noctis doesn’t comment when Prompto snuggles in closer to try to smudge Ardyn from his thoughts. He’s done with having Ardyn plague him. Noct’s warmth makes it easy. Prompto empties out his worries with a deep exhale and breathes easy in Noct’s comforting presence. He settles. And he closes his eyes.

His blood is quiet. Normal. Normal as it could be. 

**Author's Note:**

> ok now that youve reached the end of this fic i can give up the pretense that im a writer when im very much unequivocally a reader more than anything else so please let me know your thoughts bc I DONT KNOW HOW WELL I DID BC I CANT TAKE MY CREATOR GLASSES OFF.... also thank you to my beloved friend sundry for the help. writing this fic was death
> 
> this fic happened bc i struck with a sudden desire to write a certain Mood. i ended up wiffing said mood entirely and ended up with this instead but _h_ oh well. writing does not come naturally to me but i still had fun with this... guess i just read so many prompto fics in the past year that i ended up actually writing one myself lmao 
> 
> i love prompto. dearly. 
> 
> anyways a comment would be hella nice.... thank you for reading 


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